Portable radio receivers, such as pagers, are typically carried by users for the purpose of receiving messages when away from a computer or telephone. Generally, a portable receiver includes an alert mechanism for generating an alert to announce reception of a message to the user. In response to receiving the message, the receiver may then display the message to the user automatically, or the message may be displayed in response to manipulation of controls by the user. In some situations, the user could be inconvenienced by having to read the message immediately in order to determine its content. Therefore, some portable receivers generate different alerts to announce reception of different types of messages such that the user can determine the message type from hearing the alert.
In many communication systems, common messages are often transmitted to multiple portable receivers. Some communication systems, for instance, transmit sports information to service subscribers who carry portable receivers so that the subscribers can receive current information about a sport or even a particular event. Using conventional paging technology, a portable receiver carried by such a subscriber could, for example, be alerted to the message type, e.g., "sports", of the received message. Although the user could determine the message type from the alert, he could not, however, determine message content from the alert. As a result, the user would have to read each received message to determine whether the current message was of interest to him.
Thus, what is needed is a method and apparatus for generating alerts based upon message content.